Since university, I've enjoyed cooking my own meals (necessity became enjoyment) and having recently started my first graduate job (meaning low pay, high transportation costs) what better time to use my 'uni skills'. When I came across your website, it was seriously a lifesaver! I didn't hesitate to buy your book when I saw it released at my local Kinokuniya bookstore (I live in Malaysia if you're curious). Thankfully there is rather large japanese community here in Kuala Lumpur and the surrounding suburbs that it is quite easy to get the japanese ingredients.

It sort of looks like kiritanpo - beaten regular (not mochi) rice, formed into a dough around a stick and grilled over charcoal. It's usually put into hotpots or soups and stewed. My mother loves it. It's a speciality of the northern part of Japan. I'll see if I can find a recipe somewhere...

ETA: My mother says that that's more likely goheimochi （五平餅）- similar kind of rice goo on a stick, and eaten with a miso based sauce. It's a speciality of the Nagano region.

I went to a friend's house yesterday for nabe and we made some dumplings by grinding regular Japanese cooked rice in suribachi until it resembled roughly pounded mochi. With wet hands the pounded and ground rice was formed into balls and then dropped into the stock. It was very hard work!!!

At home I dropped some just cooked rice into the prewarmed bin of my basic bread maker and let it grind away for about ten minutes. Result was exactly the same but without the red hands and sore wrists. I had some in soup but thought I'd investigate to see what I should do with the rest and this thread turned up.

I tried out the recipe T'Marie posted for goheimochi as I had sesame seeds and walnuts to hand (I did see a similar recipe where miso, soy and mirin was combined with chestnut puree instead of the nuts and sesame seeds) and it was delicious. I'll have to practice more as the photo in the original post shows some extremely thin gohei mochi with an optimum rice to miso sauce ratio. Even so, it was very nice and something I will be preparing for the young children I know over the winter, it's the perfect food to hold with pre-soaked sticks over an open fire. As a mum I'll feel more secure offering this than real mochi, which is a choking hazard.

If you have a breadmaker or a kitchenaid with a dough hook I'd definitely recommend this kind of dumpling - for sweet or savoury dishes. I'll try it with brown rice on the next attempt. I'm not sold on the idea of brown rice mochi but brown rice goheimochi might suit me very well.

EDIT TO ADD:
The savoury (or rather, unsweetened) rice dumplings you can make by pounding regular Japanese rice and forming into balls are called Damako Mochi. They are a speciality of Akita prefecture as is damako nabe. There's something extremely satisfying about the dense texture on a cold day.
I made some more today along with a second round of gohei mochi. Very easy to make thin shapes by pressing it between clingfilm/plastic wrap then folding over sandwiching a stick or skewers inside and pressing out flat again. The sauce is easy work in a pestle and mortar, takes about a minute.

AND AGAIN with a note on Damako mochi made with brown rice. Works very well - especially if you can apply some high heat to the shaped balls so that parts of them brown and toast. A welcome addition to a soup, much nicer than simply adding rice. As can be expected, the texture is less firm and elastic than the white rice version. I like this as a healthy wholesome convenience food, toasted, cooled, wrapped in the freezer ready to drop into a bowl of soup whenever needed. Doesn't have enough of a toothsome bite to make me want them in gohei mochi though.